What is a country? While certain basic criteria—borders, a government, and recognition from other countries—seem obvious, journalist Joshua Keating investigates what happens in areas of the world that exist as exceptions to these rules. Combining history with incisive observations drawn from his travels and interviews, Keating looks at semiautonomous regions like Abkhazia, Kurdistan, and Somaliland; a Mohawk reservation straddling the U.S.-Canada border; and an island nation whose very existence is threatened by climate change.